Over the past few months, it’s occurred to me that at my ripe old age of 30, I’ve lost some dexterity in my hands. I used to be able to hold my iced coffee and phone securely in my hand, but these days, my mitts are limited to one function at a time—and I don’t like what that says about my mortality, frankly. Luckily, there are ways to improve dexterity, so let’s all ignore the creeping passage of time and our impending old age and focus instead on helping our hands be the best they can be.
To start with the basics, dexterity is the skill of performing tasks, particularly with your hands. “You need it for everyday tasks and reacting to anything that occurs throughout your day,” said Sam Vascones, a New York-based personal trainer.
When you think of how much you do with your hands all day, from making yourself scrambled eggs in the morning to folding laundry in the evening (and everything in between), it becomes clear how vital dexterity is to daily life. Kendra Vander Wal, an occupational therapist in Colorado, also noted that in addition to the necessary activities of your daily life, dexterity helps you have fun, too. You need it to play sports, for example, or use a remote or a video game controller.
Loss of dexterity can be the result of a lot of things, according Stephanie Weyrauch, a physical therapist and vice president of the American Physical Therapy Association of Connecticut . Those causes could include osteoarthritis, stroke, or trauma, but it can also be attributed to simply not promoting it correctly. As an example, she pointed to someone who plays musical instruments in high school—if they stop playing later on, they could struggle to play as well after picking it back up in adulthood.
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“This means that our brain has some effect on dexterity as well,” she said. “Practice makes progress. The more we use our hands to perform a task, the easier it becomes.”
Vascones noted that a lack of flexibility, lack of mobility, or lack of strength can impact dexterity, too.
For some specific tips on improving dexterity, we turned to Weyrauch and personal trainer Abdias Rojas. “Shit,” Rojas said (very excitedly), “there are so many movements you can do to actually improve not just the strength of your hands but also flexibility in your hands.” Here are the ones they recommended:
Beyond exercise, Rojas suggested hand massages and even acupuncture. Vascones also suggested that someone who has a hard time managing multiple items in their hand, for instance, should work with vice grips and not skimp on their forearm workouts, but “if it’s a mobility issue, you may need to stretch the hand and forearm or work on supination and pronation of your hand.” Per Vander Wal, you can even make this fun: “Leisure activities such as working with clay and putty, spraying water bottles, or cutting with scissors can also work on building dexterity.”
Don’t overlook the value of overall body health when it comes to improving dexterity, either. Weyrauch pointed out that “without the optimal gross (which require larger movements and more muscle groups) and fine motor (which require more precision) skills, which make up the dexterity of our hands, we would be unable to perform” daily tasks.
If you’re struggling with your dexterity to a detrimental degree or exercises on your own aren’t helping, consider seeing a medical professional or physical therapist. Vander Wal noted there are a few different assessments a trained pro can perform, like using the O’Connor finger dexterity test. Identifying the cause and severity of the issue can help you make a better plan for improvement—and get back to dual-wielding your keys and phone or beating a high score in a video game in no time.